There’s a crêperie nearby that serves these French crepes and galettes made with buck wheat that employs French speakers so you can be guaranteed to hear French being spoken every time you go there.

On Friday morning, I didn’t have anything planned for the day (except for 9 holes of golf later that afternoon) so I decided to go to this crêperie for breakfast. It was just opening up so people were getting ready and it was great to listen in to the conversation and general chit chat of the staff. Some words I could pick up some not. When they speak too fast, I still get lost.

This semester I just completed a 10 week B1.4 Intermediate program with the Alliance Francaise. However I decided to take a 3 month break again and do my own studies for next semester.

They include doing my own grammar, comprehension activities; watching French YouTubers to listen to the language every day; watching French news daily and also weekly chats with my French friends. The formal classes at the Alliance are ok but they simply don’t have the amount of talking I want to do because you’re in a class of 10.

For the last three times I did sign up to the Conversation Class Intensives 2 hours every day for one week but each of them have been cancelled due to lack of numbers. I suspect it’s more that people don’t have this time to commit every day but I do wonder why the school doesn’t offer it in different ways. That’s my only negative with their programs – not enough talking. Anyway, I’ll do my own thing and see how I go to pick up in a few months and do the next class hopefully improved in my speaking skills.

I also finished up with my weekly Thursday “Conversation Classes with Nathalie”. These are run at the Provedore Cafe in Ormond near my place at 1:30-2:30pm. I like these social gatherings because there’s a small group of us now – the same people – who chat in French and have a cup of coffee or something to eat.

On Thursday afternoons at 4pm or 5pm (in summer) I chat with Renee and as we have similar interests, there’s never a shortage of things to talk about. 30 mins in French and 30 minutes in English and we correct each other. One day I would love to meet her in person! We also chat in Telegram back and forth to improve our writing.

Along with that I chat and talk with Joelle and Patricia online through an app sharing photos and stories of our day. I’ve learned so much from their daily lives and how similar and different it is to ours. One big difference? They travel a lot more for their holidays. They have Saint Day celebrations and they have the best food in different locations. For example, at this time of the year, many towns have Saint Jean de Baptist’s festivities. (They jump over bonfires but methinks with Europeans summers, they’d have stopped that!).

You’d never see such things here in Australia and I’m thankful to observe and learn from afar.

I’ve always loved the French language and culture and so proud of myself to have learned it and continue to learn it. It seems now to be a part of my life forever and it’s bringing new perspectives and opportunities to meet and converse with a wide variety of French natives and Francophiles. No other language has had this pull on me.